


i can see death's disguise

by defcontwo



Category: X-Force (Comics)
Genre: Campus Illuminati Assassin Squad, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 05:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People look at Wade and they see death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i can see death's disguise

**Author's Note:**

> short fill for a friend's prompt.

People look at Wade and they see death. They see scars upon scars, not an inch of skin spared from the curse that this world has gifted him. People look at him and they like to imagine that they see every person that he's killed, some nameless stranger's life's blood dripping from the blade of his beloved katana. 

_His outsides reflect his insides_ , she had overheard Scott Summers saying once, tone derisive, and she remembers thinking, _I wish I could say the same for you. For me. For all of us._

She remembers the young girl that she used to be, when her powers were still new and sleight, and how she had dreamed of being a hero. She remembers that young girl and wonders what she would think of these powers of hers, how they've grown into something great and terrible, far more vast than she ever could have imagined. She can reach into people's minds and take everything that makes them unique and tear it asunder, and it would be so, _so_ easy that sometimes she wakes in the night screaming to think of it. 

They play at being heroes, the whole lot of them. They paste over their hypocrisy and their body-count with pretty words and righteous speeches, and they forget that she can see into their minds and into their hearts and root out the lies. Some days, Betsy has to dig her fingernails into her palms and close her eyes to it so she doesn't scream. 

Wade is many things. He is death and madness and so much destruction. He is a little boy covered in scars and insecurities. He has done monstrous things but so has she - she's just gotten better at hiding it. Wade can't hide what he is, it is a brutal honesty that can't be outwitted with the right quip or shot full of enough bullets to make it go away. 

But when she reaches into his mind, she finds nothing. Nothing that she can bend or break because he is already broken, and it is a relief, to know that there is no damage to be done here. She can't hurt him, not in all of the ways that she fears. 

His outsides reflect his insides, Scott had said. _It could be worse,_ Betsy thinks.


End file.
